Monthly Archives: April 2017

I much prefer Spring snow to Winter snow. You know that the ground is warm, every day is getting a little longer, and this snow will quickly melt, rather than sticking around outstaying it’s welcome. It does slow down the pace of life, especially for me as I am afraid to drive when the weather is mucky. But I had to drive across town this morning, and I must admit it was a rather lovely day.

I was walking down the street when I stopped to admire the icicles forming on this imposing roofline (click on the picture for details).

The snow changes the landscape and morphs it into the sort of place where one might see a fairy hiding away from the cold.

The main street runs down the horizontal bit of town, the rest of it slopes sharply upward and I always wonder ‘how do they get their groceries in?’.

The Little Engine that Could graces the nearby park. Built in the late 1880’s this engine powered a cog railway to carry tourists up to admire the view. On a day such as today they would not have been able to see much besides softly falling snow.

The scene today is peaceful and almost pastoral, I saw a few hardy souls out walking their dogs. But there was very little traffic, it was mostly just me and my thoughts, admiring the quiet.

A few weeks back, the annual space symposium was in town. It’s a sort of trade show for persons working for the military and civilian spaceflight industry (I know, who even knew there was such a thing!). Some companies are there to flog their products and others are just there to show they exist (and could sell you something). But we already had our own version of a rocket here in town.

It’s not going anywhere, this sculpture is by famous local artist Concrete Couch. I made a tiny tile for a project he is doing at a local school, and that is the name he goes by. It guards the county building where I went to pay my car tax.

Another place to see rockets is in the ceiling at the local public library that is devoted to technology. Although is is somewhat enigmatic to have rockets stuck in the ceiling, I’m sure that there is a reason for this (besides human error).

This is the real rocket that was in town to promote ordinary (extremely wealthy) people going into outer space. Owned by the Amazon guy, this rocket can carry one into outer space and back again. I must say I was rather surprised to see it when I was driving down the street to the pub. The rocket company brags that the windows on the space capsule are much nicer that the ones NASA uses, so one gets a better view.

But I’m afraid that this is actually more my speed. It’s a candy shop that specializes in vintage candy of the sort we old people had while growing up. And if one is too young to have nostalgia for this, one can still enjoy the candy, because who doesn’t like candy?

It’s well known that rabbits are pests. Just look at the career of Peter Rabbit.

He is famous as a carrot thief, and he lost his new jacket and slippers almost as soon as he got them, he’s very careless and doesn’t listen to his mother. But, he is also adorable! As are all bunnies, and this is the season that we celebrate them. So here are a few pictures of the newest rabbits in my collection (yes, I do remember that I am supposed to be downsizing, just not today).

There is just something appealing about the little round shape of the rabbit.

They do try to hide, but the ears always give them away.

This is one of the bunnies that lives down by the mailbox. He came running up the driveway as soon as he saw me one morning recently.

And this is the rest of them as well. I tried buying commercial rabbit pellets for them, but they did not like that nutritionally balanced stuff. This is sweet mix (a horse treat), oats, corn, and crunchy bits coated in molasses. They are rabbits after my own heart. (And they are probably where Cadbury Eggs come from!)

Among the many things I get roped in to things I volunteer to help with is a fund-raiser for a children’s cancer charity. So I was down at the local TV station to help with answering phones to do my bit. The cameraman asked if we liked being on the telly, and I said “I was horrified” (I had forgotten that I am, in fact, that old). We are there during the entire time when they do the news broadcast, and they spliced us in at random points as filler. (Sorry there are no pictures of this as I was either busy, or pretending to look busy). After it was all over I ran an eyeball over the news room.

This is where the newsreader sits while delivering the news. The news team is a man (so to speak) short because one of the team just had her baby and is on maternity leave.

The cameraman is a robot that runs along this circular track, I presume a human tells it what to do (for now).

This is the weather guy. Everyone else had buggered off, but he was sitting there still working. Looks like he was picking weather pictures for the station’s Facebook page. He is pretty decent at his job, he was the only forecaster who called it correctly.

And this was the weather that morning. But because it’s spring, it was mostly gone by noon.